It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that
costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces
next to no waste. If that does not sound radical enough, how about this:
the principle behind the source turns modern physics on its head.
Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical
engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built
a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than
conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments
and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions
of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims
to be just months away from unveiling his creation.

The problem is that according to the rules of quantum mechanics, the
physics that governs the behaviour of atoms, the idea is theoretically
impossible. "Physicists are quite conservative. It's not easy to convince
them to change a theory that is accepted for 50 to 60 years. I don't think
[Mills's] theory should be supported," said Jan Naudts, a theoretical physicist
at the University of Antwerp.

What has much of the physics world up in arms is Dr Mills's claim that
he has produced a new form of hydrogen, the simplest of all the atoms,
with just a single proton circled by one electron. In his "hydrino", the
electron sits a little closer to the proton than normal, and the formation
of the new atoms from traditional hydrogen releases huge amounts of energy.

This is scientific heresy. According to quantum mechanics, electrons
can only exist in an atom in strictly defined orbits, and the shortest
distance allowed between the proton and electron in hydrogen is fixed.
The two particles are simply not allowed to get any closer.

According to Dr Mills, there can be only one explanation: quantum mechanics
must be wrong. "We've done a lot of testing. We've got 50 independent validation
reports, we've got 65 peer-reviewed journal articles," he said. "We ran
into this theoretical resistance and there are some vested interests here.
People are very strong and fervent protectors of this [quantum] theory
that they use."

Rick Maas, a chemist at the University of North Carolina at Asheville
(UNC) who specialises in sustainable energy sources, was allowed unfettered
access to Blacklight's laboratories this year. "We went in with a healthy
amount of scepticism. While it would certainly be nice if this were true,
in my position as head of a research institution, I really wouldn't want
to make a mistake. The last thing I want is to be remembered as the person
who derailed a lot of sustainable energy investment into something that
wasn't real."

But Prof Maas and Randy Booker, a UNC physicist, left under no doubt
about Dr Mill's claims. "All of us who are not quantum physicists are looking
at Dr Mills's data and we find it very compelling," said Prof Maas. "Dr
Booker and I have both put our professional reputations on the line as
far as that goes."

Dr Mills's idea goes against almost a century of thinking. When scientists
developed the theory of quantum mechanics they described a world where
measuring the exact position or energy of a particle was impossible and
where the laws of classical physics had no effect. The theory has been
hailed as one of the 20th century's greatest achievements.

But it is an achievement Dr Mills thinks is flawed. He turned back to
earlier classical physics to develop a theory which, unlike quantum mechanics,
allows an electron to move much closer to the proton at the heart of a
hydrogen atom and, in doing so, release the substantial amounts of energy
he seeks to exploit. Dr Mills's theory, known as classical quantum mechanics
and published in the journal Physics Essays in 2003, has been criticised
most publicly by Andreas Rathke of the European Space Agency. In a damning
critique published recently in the New Journal of Physics, he argued that
Dr Mills's theory was the result of mathematical mistakes.

Dr Mills argues that there are plenty of flaws in Dr Rathke's critique.
"His paper's riddled with mistakes. We've had other physicists contact
him and say this is embarrassing to the journal and [Dr Rathke] won't respond,"
said Dr Mills.

While the theoretical tangle is unlikely to resolve itself soon, those
wanting to exploit the technology are pushing ahead. "We would like to
understand it from an academic standpoint and then we would like to be
able to use the implications to actually produce energy products," said
Prof Maas. "The companies that are lining up behind this are household
names."

Dr Mills will not go into details of who is investing in his research
but rumours suggest a range of US power companies. It is well known also
that Nasa's institute of advanced concepts has funded research into finding
a way of using Blacklight's technology to power rockets.

According to Prof Maas, the first product built with Blacklight's technology,
which will be available in as little as four years, will be a household
heater. As the technology is scaled up, he says, bigger furnaces will be
able to boil water and turn turbines to produce electricity.

In a recent economic forecast, Prof Maas calculated that hydrino energy
would cost around 1.2 cents (0.7p) per kilowatt hour. This compares to
an average of 5 cents per kWh for coal and 6 cents for nuclear energy.

"If it's wrong, it will be proven wrong," said Kert Davies, research
director of Greenpeace USA. "But if it's right, it is so important that
all else falls away. It has the potential to solve our dependence on oil.
Our stance is of cautious optimism."

Alternative energy

Cold fusion

More than 16 years after chemists' claims to have created a star in
a jar imploded in acrimony, the US government has said it might fund more
research. Mainstream physicists still balk at reports that a beaker of
cold water and metal electrodes can produce excess heat, but a hardy band
of scientists across the world refuse to let the dream die.

Methane hydrates

The US and Japan are leading attempts to tap this source of fossil fuel
buried beneath the seabed and Arctic permafrost. A mixture of ice and natural
gas, hydrates are believed to contain more carbon than existing reserves
of oil, coal and gas put together.

Solar chimneys

Sunlight heats trapped air, which rises through a giant chimney and
drives turbines. Leonardo da Vinci designed such a power tower and the
Australian company Enviromission plans to build one. Despite being scaled
down recently, the concrete chimney will still stand some 700 metres over
the outback.

Nuclear fusion

Turns nuclear power on its head by combining atoms rather than splitting
them to release energy - copying the reaction at the heart of the sun.
After years of arguments the world has agreed to build a test reactor to
see whether it works on a commercial scale. Called Iter, it could be switched
on within a decade.

Wave generators

No longer a dead duck, the hopes of engineers are riding on bobbing
floats again. The British company Trident Energy recently unveiled a design
that uses a linear generator to convert the motion of the sea into electricity.
A wave farm just a few hundred metres across could power 62,000 homes.
David Adam